Welcome to the very busy month of July, where you have nearly every option available to you for adventure. July is a tricky month for me because of the diversity of activities I have to prepare for and the degree of heat and weather and conditions I have to operate in with you finishing your trip as a happy customer. June didn’t go so well, but for different reasons I need to explain. To be very clear, I am not a buy it and show up experience. Especially in July. Here is a good easy way to look at it. You are a guest in my kitchen. I supply the kitchen, the pots and pans, the cook top the recipe and the experience to cook a really nice meal. You bring the ingredients and help make the meal with me. That is our partnership in the context of a charter. If you bring the wrong ingredients and don’t follow the recipe, what happens? Nothing good. That meal will suck despite anything I can do. In my business, every detail affects what does or does not happen according to plans or expectations.

I can deal with issues, mistakes and human issues that come with operating a significant volume of charters. When you make your reservation, there is a section for you to provide me with notes that help me learn about you, your group, your wants and special needs. That is where you help me help you with helpful information. I can only adjust and plan for what I know. Leave your booking notes blank and I plan for blank and assume you are normal and want to do an easy trip. Examples of helpful notes would be: there are 6 of us, we would like to have fun and catch fish for dinner. No ocean experience. Not comfortable in waves…….I can make a game plan for this group instantly with that information. Here is an example of helpful information I never get. We are very large people, we don’t do well in the heat, we have little ability to follow instructions, my child is moderately autistic, we irrational fears of water,waves, fish and sharks, we are human tornadoes or we just want a light and easy trip, we prefer fun over fishing, we would like to learn and have zero fishing experience, we would like to fish closer to shore than far out…..these are common examples that I learn along the way and often I would have made a completely different game plan if I knew this info. I generally aim for the solution that should check all of the boxes, but lately that has been the wrong approach.

June was a great month for fishing. I had more consecutive June trips that were extremely challenging on the customer end than I can ever remember. If you are reading this you are well ahead of the majority of those groups that had success limiting issues. I don’t mean to or want to preach to my good customers. All you have to do is invest in your trip and follow the helpful information I provide here on my website. It is not rocket science. I tell people to prepare like they are having a picnic on the ocean and bring a few towels in case it gets splashy. Aside from medication to prevent sea sickness, all you need to do is show up on time and prepared for what you elected to do. If you don’t know what to do, pull up a youtube video and watch what it looks like. My website has all of this information, but so does the internet. Choose to use it or not. I watch youtube videos nearly every day to learn how to do something.

I am in the fun business. I know what I am doing and how to have fun operating my business. I have an easy recipe to follow that always provides success. I can teach anybody how to do what I do if you have the ability to learn. My business is unique in that you are my crew and you are actually doing the activity to make your success through easy instructions and common sense actions on a simple repeated pattern. I 100% have accepted that people are different now. I know there are many more needs and issues and obstacles that come on board with each group. I need to know about that because it affects your trip more than global warming, weather extremes, declining fisheries, strict fisheries regulations and the death of our reefs. I can work with all of those variables that work against me because I’m aware and prepared for the challenges of the fishery or the weather or activity we are doing. The curve ball has been my customers derailing everything I have in place to have success in what we are doing. Doing everything wrong produces only 1 kind of result. I can’t fix that. For fishing, we only have x amount of time and x amount of chances.

My business depends on my ability to offer successful and fun trips to you and everybody that decides to book a trip with me. The quickest death of my business will come by a few months of charters guests booking a trip that is beyond your groups ability and showing up with a completely unprepared group that knows nothing and can’t learn much. June was that. July and August is usually the most concerning because every detail matters much more in the heat. Do not book a trip and show up unprepared. I’m done preaching.

Alright, July report and info. Lots to talk about. Let’s start with lobster mini season. No, I am not offering mini season trips for lobster July 24, 25. It is too dangerous for you to be in the water and I don’t want the problems that come with the volume of visitors here. I will be offering fishing trips for those days. Somebody was run over and killed today (7/5) if you need a real world example. For some crazy reason, Florida residents have been allowed a 1 day season on July 14 before mini season. I will be offering a trip for that day to Florida residents that can produce a Florida ID. See my rates page. Regular lobster season opens August 6th and we will see how that goes when the time comes. Hopefully our water quality is good and we have a good season.

Fishing on the reef has been great. Early starts has been the key to getting a good snapper bite. Please, no afternoon half day reef trips. It won’t work. Mangrove snapper have been really good and yellowtail snapper have been fair, with mostly smaller keeper fish, which is normal for the hot months. I am offering night trips for mangrove snapper, call and ask for details before booking please. My off the boat schedule needs to be factored in for a night trip to be booked.

Offshore tuna and mahi have been pretty good. It hasn’t been easy, but covering water and capitalizing on opportunities have led to success. Lots of smaller fish, but each trip has produced ok to good results. My crew has made more of a difference in what we catch than the fishery. Offshore trips are not appropriate for beginners and require working knowledge of how the fishery and equipment works. When you don’t know anything about anything, your trip doesn’t normally go well when it is supposed to. Electric deep dropping is still open for a few species and may be an option if the conditions are right. Mainly blue line tilefish is our target.

This is a great time of the year for snorkeling trips. I have not run many for whatever reason. Water quality has been mostly good. Keep in mind that fishing early and finishing up snorkeling is a great trip for July and August. The fish generally stop eating when the heat of the day sets in, so let’s go snorkeling!

If you made it this far, I want to finish with kind words for my customers. I understand many of your challenges and how what you are doing with me is unfamiliar and hot and everything in between. I understand your perspective. You are essentially paying me a thousand dollars or more to hang out and do something you want to be fun and productive. My perspective is that my trips are a very high price point to not be invested in your charter with me. Growing up, my family would never have been able to afford to charter a trip with my business as you may. I have a ton of respect for your trip and I feel I have to deliver a result for what you are financially investing in me and my business. If I sucked at catching fish or was an asshole, you probably would not book a fishing trip with me, right? So, what do I do when I keep getting trips with people that just miss the point of everything? My reality has been the opposite of any words that come out of my mouth to guide my guests in the activity we are doing. I figure things out. I’m not the smartest guy. My job is to figure everything I do out quickly and with success. I can not figure out how to teach or change my teaching methods to get my customers to learn something no more complicated as tying your shoe laces, making your bed or doing a load of laundry. If I have a bad trip with you, you are not likely to have a great trip with me. I can run any type of trip. I have run every kind of trip many times and have learned how to prevent problems. Many trips I wish I could turn around and get people off my boat. I don’t, but I should. It is easy to be a good guest. I don’t expect you to be perfect or even good at what we are doing. I’m getting frustrated with too many people for the same reasons. Your trip with me is us doing something together cohesively. I believe most of you should be able to easily replicate what I have done with thousands of other guests for 13 plus years. If you don’t know, put that info in your booking notes. Maybe we can come up with a safe word to understand that your trip might be a dumpster fire and I don’t need to worry about you catching a normal amount of fish to justify my effort and I can relax and have fun with you. I do not want to repeat June issues. What I do is too easy to be as hard as it has been made to be for too long. Please bring your A game for July trips. I need this train to be on the tracks for a while and get some normal momentum back day to day. Every bit of information on this website is designed to keep you on the tracks. Let’s have fun together.

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